Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Unlike the Tánaiste, I am not medically qualified although I spent a number of years in the healthcare area working around medical devices and medicines. I am not an expert so I talk to experts to try to inform myself of what is happening on the ground. When I say experts, I mean those who are at the front line of medicine, working with cutting edge medicines and dealing with Covid patients.

On 4 April 2020 I issued a national statement calling for the use of face masks but this was not supported by NPHET until August 2020, when it mandated the use of masks in shops and indoor settings. On 23 April I asked NPHET to consider allowing senior nursing staff in residential care settings to take nasal swabs rather than sending in National Ambulance Service personnel in full PPE, which was terrorising dementia patients. I asked for that in April but it did not become policy until the end of May, again waiting for NPHET approval. In May 2020 I raised the issue of antigen testing by a world-leading pharmaceutical company with NPHET but this was dismissed out of hand, within two days. I pushed the issue with the Tánaiste's office, the Taoiseach's office and the Department of Health and asked that pilot studies be done with the Construction Industry Federation, CIF. I engaged with Professor Paddy Mallon on this and to be fair to the Tánaiste, he looked to get Professor Mark Ferguson on board because he saw the resistance to antigen testing. Now we are talking about the roll out of some pilot studies in August or September of this year but this is not acceptable. Antigen testing is being used in the US and we are using it as a Brexit mediator in the context of haulage. We are still trying to roll it out and this is retarding our Covid-19 response.

In recent weeks the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health produced a very fine report on the use and possible benefits of vitamin D supplements. There is overwhelming evidence supporting this but it has not been adopted by NPHET or even properly looked at. Vitamin D is a very benign prophylaxis that could be used and I cannot understand why we are not doing it. NPHET still refuses to take seriously the views of underlings in the healthcare service. Who is making the decisions? It is people who are earning many times the average industrial wage in this country and who are not furloughed from their jobs or businesses.

I also ask the Tánaiste to look at the issue of e-health. We do not have a patient identifier number. There is the farcical situation with healthcare where there are two systems, one in the acute hospitals and one in community health, that do not talk to each other, which leads to double booking of people coming in for vaccinations. This is not Ireland in 2021, nor should it be. We must consider what Slovakia, Denmark and Hungary are doing and send people there to find out what e-health systems they use and bring this into our Covid-19 response.

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